


Nobody Better

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Good Enough [9]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Anxiety, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post 2017-2018 NHL Season, Same-Sex Marriage, Team as Family, Tourette's Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 15:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: “We’re going to be married next week, baby. Can you believe it?”“Yeah, it’s amazing,” Patrice smiles back, like this is the first time Brad’s said that today instead of the thousandth. “The best decision you ever went through with was when you were drunk off your ass in a parking lot.”[For anyone scared to read this because they think Tourette's is some horrible disease, it's not. It's commonly portrayed in media as the behavior disorder that makes you scream swear words at people no matter how inaccurate that really is.]





	Nobody Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> More of Marchy-With-Tourette's for trua!
> 
> There's tons of references in this one to things that have happened in the rest of the series, so you should probably read the other works first if you haven't already.
> 
> Content warning: Brad has a panic attack in this fic.

**Last Week**

 

“Can you believe my mom wanted to help pay for this?” Brad chuckles as they go through the last of the paperwork. Tonight’s their final night at home in Boston before they fly to Quebec City.

“Yes,” Patrice answers with a straight face. “My mom wanted to, too. And then your mom called me to try and make me ‘see sense’ and let her and my mom pay for everything. Because somehow they got each other’s numbers and started conspiring behind our backs to take over our wedding.”

“Oh my god, that’s a thing that happened?” Brad laughs. “How did I not hear about this until now?”

“Because it wasn’t important. I managed to talk both of them out of it,” Patrice smiles. “Your mom called me every night for the last month, too. ‘Are you taking care of Bradley? Make sure he wears socks before he puts on sneakers so he doesn’t get blisters.’”

“For fuck’s sake, mom, I’m thirty years old,” Brad groans as if she’s in the room with them. “Ugh. We’re going to have to put up with that for six days, Pat… and apparently your mom is friends with my mom, now, which is even worse.”

“That and they’re more than the sum of their parts,” his fiancé grumbles. “So it’s going to be five times as bad as if it was just one of them.”

Brad nods, then grins. “We’re going to be married next week, baby. Can you believe it?”

“Yeah, it’s amazing,” Patrice smiles back, like this is the first time Brad’s said that today instead of the thousandth. “The best decision you ever went through with was when you were drunk off your ass in a parking lot.”

He laughs. “Yeah, definitely. Because now I get to marry an actual saint.”

Patrice twists over suddenly, dropping the papers onto the coffee table so that he can start tickling Brad mercilessly. “For the last! Time! Bradley! I’m not a saint!”

Brad can’t shove him off because he’s weakened by laughter and only succeeds in dropping off the side of the couch. His skull bounces off the floor and he yelps. “GAH! Fuck!”

Patrice is immediately lifting him back onto the couch, making him lay down and gently cradling his head. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen…”

Brad rubs his head, then makes a face. “Pat, you knocked me onto the floor, got me injured, and worst of all you _tickled_ me. I demand that you kiss me this second to pay me back for those crimes.”

Patrice gives a relieved smile and complies, draping himself over top of Brad and kissing him thoroughly. “There. Better?”

Brad grins. “Yeah.”

“Good. Because we really need to finish this crap.”

They sit up and go back to their paperwork.

* * *

**Two Days Ago**

 

“How come you wouldn’t let us throw you a bachelor party?” Kevan gripes as they’re carrying around tables. The wedding is going to be in a church, but the reception is at Patrice’s parents house (specifically, the backyard). “We wouldn’a hired any strippers, really!”

“Bro if you want to get me hammered and watch me do stupid shit, then you can wait until we win the next Winter Classic,” Brad grunts. He can’t believe he has to help with this - he’s the one getting married! “I’m getting too old for that shit, my hangovers last for days sometimes now.”

“Translation: he’s stopped being any fun off the ice,” Pasta jokes as he’s unfolding a stack of those shitty metal chairs.

“Yeah, wait ’til you get where I am, Noodle Boy, thirty’s not even that old but it’s old enough for drinking to stop being fun,” Brad informs him.

“Well that sounds sucky,” Pasta shrugs. “So I have to not get old, then.”

From the porch, Krej barks a laugh. “Yeah! You go right ahead, but if you figure that one out, make sure to share your secret with us before it’s too late, yes?”

The two of them start bickering in Czech about… something. Brad tunes it out and wipes sweat off his forehead. This isn’t that hard of a job, but it’s way too hot for ten in the morning. He’s so glad he remembered to pack shorts; on the other hand, how bad will this be when they’re out here after the wedding, all in dress clothes that don’t breathe? Someone will end up passing out.

“Guys, I apologize for your suffering in advance,” Brad decides as soon as he has that thought. “But Patrice probably won’t let me say that you can put on, like, weather-appropriate clothes and shit for the after party.”

“Don’t worry about it, man,” Danton smiles. “You’re only getting married once, after all.”

Thinking of what the divorce rate is, Brad can’t help grinning back appreciatively. His friends are confident that his marriage will be permanent, and he doesn’t have to hope they’re right because he already knows they are. The rest of his life will be spent with Patrice Bergeron, and nothing can convince him otherwise.

* * *

**Yesterday**

 

Brad’s ticcing like crazy, he’s sweating even in an air-conditioned room, he can’t sit still so he’s pacing. He can’t fucking breathe. The air is crushing him. Nothing is okay. It’s not okay, it’s not okay, it’s not okay, because he knows Patrice will finally see sense and realize Brad’s not good enough. Brad wouldn’t marry Brad, after all. He can’t make Patrice do this, it’s wrong, Patrice deserves better.

Door. Door opens and then closes again, behind him. Hands. They’re on his wrists, pulling his fingers away so that he stops grabbing his hair. Arms. He’s crushed against somebody.

“Brad, breathe,” Patrice murmurs in his ear. “It’s okay, everything’s okay. You’re just having a panic attack.”

“’S not okay,” Brad chokes out. He can’t fucking breathe. The air won’t find his lungs. “Not okay…”

“Brad, come on, you’re going to be okay. I promise there’s nothing wrong. I’m going to press you into the bed, and then you’ll feel better, okay?”

Brad can barely even hear his fiancé talking over the ringing in his ears. His arms and legs tingle horribly, like there’s no blood in them, and he clings to Patrice because if he doesn’t he’ll probably just drop to the floor. He can’t talk and he can’t breathe and he needs to stop Patrice, before it’s too late, because Patrice will be chained to him forever and that’s a fucking crime because Brad’s not good enough and he never has been.

Patrice pries him off and settles him face-down on the bed, then lays on his back and relaxes. Brad tries to get up but Patrice is limp and too heavy; neither of them is going anywhere, at least not for the next few minutes. Not going anywhere… Brad remembers after a second that he’s done this before. He’s tried to talk Patrice out of marrying him before and Patrice always insisted that he wants to do it anyway. Patrice isn’t going anywhere. Patrice wants to be with him.

Slowly, Brad can hear again, and despite the weight he can breathe again, too. Pressed between the mattress and his fiancé, Brad feels safe enough for his brain to start working again. It turned itself off for a few minutes, that’s all. He has panic attacks sometimes. He has an anxiety disorder because of his Tourette’s. It’s not his fault.

Patrice must feel the tension start to leave his muscles. “Better?”

“A little,” Brad mumbles. “I’m sorry I panicked, Pat…”

“You don’t have to be sorry, babe. I’m glad you’re okay again.”

Patrice is so wonderful, and right now it hurts. Brad snorts inward through his nose. “How do you put up with me?” he whimpers, swallowing.

“I don’t put up with you. It’s a labor of love.”

That just makes it worse. Brad starts shivering a little as he blinks his stinging eyes. “I fucking knew this would happen, too… I knew I’d freak out like this… I just… fuck, I…”

Brad tries to stop it, but he can’t. He fucking hates this. It’s the day before his wedding and he’s losing it. Nobody else has to get squished into a bed right before they get married. Nobody else lies here and sobs like this. It’s just him. He’s the exception to every rule ever, and it fucking sucks.

“Sshhhhh, it’s okay,” Patrice whispers. “You’re going to be fine. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to go there and say way too many words. Pasta and both our mothers are going to cry but everyone else will be bored. Then we’ll come back here and everyone will make fun of us like always, and Kevan will drink all our champagne for us. Torey will still try to say that he’s taller than you, even though he isn’t. Then we’ll grab our stuff and go to the hotel…”

Brad sniffs. “And?” he wavers.

“…and we’ll probably pass out as soon as the door closes. Then the next day we’ll have sex over and over until neither of us can move.” Patrice gets up, but it’s only to rearrange them so that they’re cuddling with Brad’s face in his chest. “Brad, everything’s going to be okay. I love you so much, and I can’t wait to get married to you tomorrow. You’re more than good enough for me, and if you weren’t I wouldn’t be here. There’s nobody better for me than you.”

“Even though I’m such an idiot?”

“ _Especially_ because you’re an idiot,” Patrice chuckles.

Brad snorts. “Don’t make me laugh, I’m trying to be pathetic over here.”

Patrice strokes down his hair and kisses the top of his head. “I bet my vows will make you cry.”

Brad nods. “Probably. Is that your goal?”

“Well… maybe a little. The main goal is mostly to help you realize that you’re stuck with me forever after tomorrow.”

“I’ll still probably have panic attacks.”

“That’s okay. Have all the panic attacks you want, I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

**Today**

 

There were tons of bad jokes, of course, about how it didn’t matter that Z is Patrice’s best man because everyone’s taller than Brad anyway. Brad, on the other hand, didn’t feel good about singling out just one team mate as his favorite, so instead his brother Jeff got picked. It felt more fair. Patrice, as always, was right: both of their mothers, and Pasta, were watching all teary-eyed. It wasn’t terribly long, so the rest of their friends and family members didn’t seem too bored.

Finally, vows. Brad goes first.

“Pat, I wanted to marry you since before we were even together. You were always an amazing friend even before we started dating. You always take me seriously, even when I’m not being serious, and you always try to help me be better. I don’t always think that I’m good enough for you, and I know you don’t like it when I say that, but the truth is you also make me want to be good enough. I want so much to deserve your love, and I’m going to spend the rest of our lives doing everything I can to make that happen.”

Patrice had frowned a little at the part about him not being good enough, but now he’s smiling and nodding a little and it’s his turn.

“Brad, I tried to think about what the first thing is I fell in love with about you. There’s so many things - you’re loyal, and honest, and my life is so much brighter with you in it. And there’s more things even than that. I could stand here all day counting them off, but I won’t. Because when I was writing my vows, I figured out that it doesn’t really matter what the first thing was. I love everything about you. You always say I’m perfect, even though it’s not true, because you make me better in so many ways. You find ways to bring out the best in me and in our friends, even on days when you’re not at your best, and it’s always amazing to watch. I think most people have moments in their relationships when they regret being with someone just for a second, but with you I never have. I’ll never regret a single moment we’ve spent together. Everyone talks about my number getting retired, but I hope yours does, too, and gets put up next to mine, because then we’ll be side-by-side forever even once we’re both gone.”

For all the talking and joking about who would cry at their wedding, Brad and Patrice are both fighting back tears as they exchange rings and finally kiss. Because… this is it. This is really it, they’re _married,_ and they’ll have each other for the rest of their lives. Before the ceremony, Brad had been quietly worrying that he’d tic at some really bad moment, but now he’s so overjoyed that he forgets to be scared of his disorder. He’s standing in a church and Patrice Bergeron is now his husband, and that leaves no space for Tourette’s or anxiety or any other bullshit. His heart is so full of love he’s surprised his chest doesn’t pop.

Pictures are taken, way too many pictures. They go back to Patrice’s parents’ house for the after party, where there’s cake and alcohol and probably more food than they strictly need even for so many people. Every single guest takes a turn hugging both of them, especially their mothers, who are both still crying. There’s no dancing, because neither of them knows how to dance, but that’s okay because the after party is a lot less formal than their clothes would suggest.

The rookies swap war stories about Brad’s pranks, Z talks fondly of watching them both grow into the competent leaders they are as well as how their relationship progressed. Acciari shares that one time he and his wife went out to a restaurant, ran into Brad and Patrice there, and spontaneously had a double date with them - as well as his opinion that Brad is only slightly less crazy off the ice than on.

Brad, for the most part, just sits back and soaks everything in. His family and his team are so happy for him, despite the slightly unpleasant moments when their relationship was still new and some people weren’t as okay with the idea. He proposed to Patrice when he was absolutely trashed, but Patrice said yes anyway. Claude Julien had been less than thrilled with them as a couple, but once Bruce Cassidy took over, he’d immediately declared his support of them.

This is, bar none, the best day of Brad’s life.

There was so much shit he had to go through to get to this point, but he finally made it.

He has Patrice - Patrice is now, indisputably, a permanent fixture of his life.

And Patrice is perfect.

That means, despite Tourette’s Syndrome’s best efforts, Brad’s life is perfect, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this will be the last one for this series, because this feels like a great spot to stop.
> 
> I'm not actually married or even engaged, so I hope I didn't get anything wrong.


End file.
